090 Radiant Black: The Audiobook is Out Now!
Listen to volume one in all its Boy Meets World glory!
Hey everyone!
Annnd we’re back!
As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve been pretty quiet the last few weeks— it’s been a pretty intense stretch, finishing the Radiant Black audiobook + putting together our five year anniversary party, both of which are now finished (and available to listen to RIGHT NOW, in the case of the audiobook!) and turned out to be pretty amazing experiences.
First up, on the party front— a massive, massive thank you to our friends at Revenge Of for hosting us and putting this all together with us. We built a full blacklight experience, complete with Radiants, QR codes and Tom Whalen prints. Oh, and Damion Poitier recorded original Colossal Black lines specifically for the party.
The next massive, massive thank you is to my amazing partner, Kelly McMahon, for all of her work coordinating and art directing the blacklight painting as well as, you know, actually doing the painting, too. Thank you so much, Kel! Love you!
I also want to give a huge thank you to Michael Busuttil, Michael Nie, Melissa Flores, and Sandra Winn for all their incredibly hard work—the five of us spent the day before the party doing all the blacklight painting over the top of the giant prints.
The result, as you’ll see below, was truly stunning.
Also, a huge thank you to Will Friedle for joining us to do a live In Conversation chat at the party. And a big thank you and shout out to Radiant Black: The Audiobook stars Phil Morris (Radiant Yellow), Anne Yatco (Radiant Red), and Rachelle Heger (Kathy + others), who were kind enough to come out and support.
And one more shoutout to Jenkins, who shot a bunch of B roll for us! Here’s a little video we cut together from the night! Check it out! It’ll be like you were there!
RADIANT BLACK: THE AUDIOBOOK
Now, back to the other huge thing that occupied every waking moment of my life for the last several weeks— I am thrilled to announce that Radiant Black: The Audiobook is officially done and released to the world!
In fact, I’ve got links for you right here!
A quick refresher on the two versions—
The Standard Edition contains just the audiobook— DRM free—plus a short cast and crew credits PDF. This is the version that will (eventually) make its way to Audible and other platforms. However, as mentioned before, we make very, very little from those platforms. So we definitely are encouraging everyone to buy it direct from us if they can.
The Deluxe Edition is only available from us. And, as someone who grew up on and still adores behind the scenes and special features, we’ve tried to go all out on what Deluxe means.
THE DELUXE EDITION INCLUDES
DRM-free, high-quality M4B and AAC editions of the audiobook
Audio commentary track with Kyle Higgins and editor Michael Busuttil (coming soon)
Roundtable discussion with Will Friedle, Rider Strong, Kyle Higgins, and Michael Busuttil
Scoring Radiant Black — an interview with composer Sam Ewing
In the Booth — A 25 minute look inside one of Kyle Higgins and Will Friedle’s recording sessions (video)
The complete audiobook script (PDF)
Behind-the-scenes collector’s booklet featuring enhanced liner notes, photography and other surprises (PDF)
ON SALE
Radiant Black #40 - March 4
And speaking of Radiant Black, we’ve also got a brand new issue—40!!— on stands today!
Preview:
Last week, some pretty exciting news dropped at Comics Pro—my Power Rangers partner (and SHIFT co-creator!) Daniele Di Nicuolo and I are reuniting and teaming up with Radiant Black co-creator Marcelo Costa to bring you a brand new Teen Titans series as a part of DC’s Next Level wave.
I can’t say much more about it right now, but you’ll be hearing quite a bit more from Daniele and me about the series in the coming months. It’s a big, bold swing about being a teenager in the DCU in 2026, the challenges of building community and connection in a very broken world.
Oh, and Red Hood’s in it. Like, a lot.
On the heels of the announcement, I spent three days last week with a litany of crazy talented creators and editors for a summit about this next era of DC and I’ve got to say, there are a lot of really cool books from really cool creators coming your way. Daniele, Marcelo and I are determined to be one of them.
BLACK MARKET PRESENTS
One more thing before I go today— and this is something I’ve been pretty darn excited about for a while now. We’re going to be rolling out a new segment in the newsletter in the coming weeks that we’re calling Black Market Presents.
The idea is pretty simple— as this newsletter has continued to grow, I’ve wanted to find a way to bring more original material to everyone and a way to use it as a platform for more creators whose work we like. To that end, we’re looking to start bringing subscribers original shorts from curated creators, designed specifically for the way that most people read emails and newsletters— on their phone.
I started in comics in 2009, during a very different industry landscape and internet. It’s not lost on me how much harder it’s become for creators—especially newer creators—to get their work out there, build their names and gain a foothold. I don’t know that this newsletter will pop anyone, but I feel like it’s a cool thing that we can do and while it’s early stages, the creators we’ve been talking to are all people I’ve had an eye on for a while and who I’m excited to see get more out there.
As a little tease of what this will look like, here’s the start of a new story by Rich Douek, Nir Levie and Buddy Beaudoin called Black Eye.
COMMUNITY & CONVENTIONS
Megacon
March 19-22
Orlando, FL
C2E2
March 27-29
Chicago, IL
Okay, that’s going to do it for this me this week!
See you at next week’s Massive-Verse Live! Monday, 6PM PST on YouTube!
Kyle
Los Angeles
Had a blast working on BLACK EYE with Rich and Buddy. Excited for people to experience the first glimpse of this strange world.
That party at "Revenge Of" looked so fun, especially with Existence literally coming to life around the partygoers. Can also confirm the RB Audiobook absolutely bangs. I've listened to it at least 3 times through and I can tell you all the effort and time put into it was worth it. I'm also very excited for the Teen Titans book you, Daniele, and Marcelo are going to be doing at DC. Can't wait to see how you guys tackle this next generation of teenage metahumans and Jason becoming a reluctant leader to them. I also can't wait to see what other stories await us in the "Black Market Presents" segment.